Thursday, January 13, 2011

Sweden aims to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the US - lawyer

AAP January 12, 2011 11:21PM

JULIAN Assange's lawyer in Britain has accused Swedish authorities of secretly planning to extradite the WikiLeaks founder to the United States, in an interview with a German newspaper to appear on Thursday.

Lawyer Mark Stephens told the weekly Die Zeit that he believed Swedish officials were cooperating with US authorities with an eye to extraditing Assange as soon as the Americans have built a criminal case against him.

"We are hearing that the Swedish are prepared to drop the rape charges against Julian as soon as the Americans demand his extradition," he said, citing sources in Washington and Stockholm.

Stephens called the Swedish charges against his client a "holding case" to buy time until the United States can prosecute him themselves over WikiLeaks' mass release of classified US documents.

He said Assange did not believe he would receive a fair trial in Sweden which was why he was fighting his extradition from Britain.